My daughter was made redundant recently. This came as no great surprise. She had been working for a niche assurance company (niche is their word, although I would call it small). For a niche/small assurance company, it had some grandiose ideas. It was based in a new building, which had won architectural awards, with a gymnasium and duck-pond and a lilting brook in the grounds. It had sponsored an eccentric English explorer who carried the company name on his front while he did something really dangerous and eccentric – like, oh, I dunno, cartwheeling to the South Pole, or something just as stupid.
